This month, dogs were all the rage at your local polling station. Are teenagers next? The new prime minister promises to lower the voting age to 16; however, 51 per cent of Britons oppose such a move, with just 24 per cent in support – that’s all Britons whose opinion is relevant (those over 18 obviously).
To some, the very notion that an individual who can pay tax and join the army yet not vote is archaic and offensive. To others, it would be madness to let children decide the future of the country! Is it a question of whether they are intelligent or mature enough to vote? Is it morally wrong to deny them the right? Would they even vote at all?
A preconception that young people are irresponsible decision-makers is simple to address: this applies in situations that evoke ‘hot cognition’, specifically pressured or group situations. Research shows the part of the brain responsible for this aspect of decision-making isn’t mature until your 20s, meaning in these circumstances teenagers are more likely to act irrationally. However, a 16 year old’s ‘cold cognition’ ability, for measured and slow decision-making, is just as mature as adults. Unless there’s a particularly vicious seagull chasing you around the polling station, it seems clear which of these capabilities would be necessary to vote. Was it just last week that women couldn’t vote since their brains were ‘inferior’? Oh, never mind, that was 106 years ago.
There’s a concern 16-17 year olds don’t understand or have enough experience to hold balanced political views. Here’s one I don’t need any stats to discuss. Political conversations with my peers have both lowered and raised my hopes for humanity, but the lack of basic politics education is entirely to blame. I’ve debated reforms to the House of Lords, cheered f*ck the tories in a post hustings pub with a team of MPs, and I’m writing this article right now – but I’d still have to give it a quick google to explain precisely how the first past the post system worked.
Curriculum coverage of politics isn’t inadequate, it’s non-existent, but we look online for answers: cue the ‘grown ups’ on how tech-obsessed we are! Implementing political education would not only benefit adolescents, but generations of voters to come, who will be more educated, engaged and enabled.
Arguably the most important issue is whether, regardless of education or background, it’s a moral imperative to grant 16-year-olds the right to vote. Imagine flipping the issue, suggesting people over 80 couldn’t vote because their decision-making skills or memory could be impaired. Undoubtedly, this would be met with outrage – after all, they’re directly affected by many policies including tax, pensions and healthcare.
See where I’m going with this? Not only will these issues affect young people now or in the future, but further policies specific to their demographic would be irrelevant or unimportant to older voters. Had the Conservatives won, in a few years I would be packing my khakis for Rishi’s plan for national service, a scheme that would never affect current 18s or over. Similarly, policies on education or climate change are going to impact 16 year olds far more than 60 year olds – and if a policy affects few of your voters, then what is the political motivation to implement or campaign for it?
In fact, the inclusion of more voters always improves the functioning of a democracy by forcing governments to work harder for all their citizens. If intelligence or experience can justify taking away someone’s right to vote, I won’t bore you with the endless problems and discrimination that could ensue.
So, let’s say you’ve gone to all the effort of permitting these insolent delinquents to vote. What if we just don’t bother, too busy on that tocktick app? The 2014 Scottish independence referendum provides a real insight. About 100,000 under-18s, 80 per cent of the eligible total, signed up to vote with 40 per cent of those polled expressing different voting intentions from their parents, disproving the idea they would just parrot their families’ views.
Voting behaviour also correlates with age, YouGov saying ‘For every 10 years older a voter is, their chance of voting Tory increases by around nine points, and the chance of them voting Labour decreases by eight points’. It seems we need to get these woke babies voting straight out the womb. With age, your earnings increase, typically along with favouring Conservative policies such as lower taxation on higher earnings, ergo a higher voting age means less progressive views represented. Cutting off an age group doesn’t just equate to reducing numbers, it also impacts the results.
If you still believe teenagers are apathetic and unengaged in politics, could I recommend a quick read up on Greta Thunberg, Malala Yousafzai, the students currently camped for Palestine outside Exeter Uni etc, etc? I could go on. There has never been a suffrage debate that didn’t result in gaining the right to vote, followed shortly by a chorus of people (old white men, perchance?) shouting that they never opposed it anyway. So, see you in a few years, assuming I don’t forget my silly teenage radicalism on the morning of my 18th birthday.
